Entertainment Review

Ride Along

2.5 stars

You'd think casting Ice Cube and Kevin Hart would be enough to make a crackerjack buddy cop comedy.

That's certainly what the writers seemed to be thinking for Ride Along, a film that proves once and for all that lousy storytelling trumps talent every time. The oddly enervating work pairs a furious Ice Cube and a manic Kevin Hart in a tale about a wannabe cop, a veteran detective and an international gang of bad guys, but there's just something missing here — a script, if we had to guess what.

Hart stars as Ben, a security guard keen to get accepted at the Atlanta police academy. He wants to marry his girlfriend Angela (Tika Sumpter), and being a cop offers both job security and the chance to impress Angela's brother James (Ice Cube), a tough Atlanta detective.

James has no time for the pint-sized Ben. He thinks his sister can do much better. He insists Ben prove his mettle by joining him for a ride-along — a day of police work on the mean streets of Atlanta. Ben is thrilled to play cop-for-a-day.

James, however, is determined to prove that Ben is too big a wimp to take proper care of Angela. He sets Ben up to fail, but next thing you know, the bumbling Ben is actually helping solve a big case, using everything he's learned from his first-person combat video games.

Ice Cube glowers throughout Ride Along while Kevin Hart bumbles and dithers, but neither actor has nearly enough to do. It's meant to be funny that Hart is endlessly cheerful and chatty as he fumbles one simple cop scenario after another; it's meant to be funny that Cube is fierce and unforgiving every time. There are some good laughs here, no question, but too many scenes drag on into improv-gone-wrong territory, as if both Hart and Cube were just winging it.

We don't mean that in a good way.

Likewise wasted here are John Leguizamo, Bryan Callen and Bruce McGill, and even a cameo from SNL vet Jay Pharaoh doesn't help much. In the world of cops 'n' robbers action, there's really nothing here you haven't seen before in the way of shoot-outs and car chases, and the comic material, lacking as it is in the 'material' part of the equation, can't compensate.

Ride Along turns out to be Just Going Along For The Ride. That's probably not what the filmmakers intended.